Year of the Cow

by Jared Stone

  * * *

  Several days later, anticipating a breakfast featuring astonishingly spreadable butter, I get ready for my run. I’ve been looking into which shoes I should pick up for my new running habit, and I’ve been exploring how people used to run. From my days as an anthropology undergrad, I recalled that humans are supposed to be really good at running pretty fast for a really long time. It’s one of only a very few purely physical traits we could exploit for hunting success. We aren’t especially strong. Or especially swift. We don’t have sharp teeth or claws. We usually have one baby at a time, and our babies stay helpless for years. But we can run. Pretty fast. Almost forever.

  Specifically, we can run fast enough and long enough to wear out prey—a technique called persistence hunting. We can’t beat many animals in a sprint, but we can keep on running, whereas a prey animal—say a gazelle or an elk—has to stop and catch its breath. Lacking the ability to sweat, these ungulates have to stop and pant to cool off. While persistence hunting, a running human catches up, forcing the prey to run before it has managed to recover from the first sprint. Eventually, the prey becomes too hot and tired to continue, which allows the hunter to spear them. Or shoot them with an arrow. Or atlatl them. Persistence hunting is an ancient technique—thought to be originally developed by Homo erectus but still practiced by some indigenous groups today, such as the famed!Kung people of the Kalahari Desert. However, persistence hunting clearly doesn’t depend on modern running shoes. Nike was only founded in 1964. How did people run prior to that?

  When I looked into how people used to run, I discovered the work of Harvard evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman. He’s done research comparing the biomechanics of shoe-wearing runners and shoeless runners. His research shows that shod runners and unshod runners run very differently.

  Most runners who learned how to run in shoes, myself included, stretch their foot out in front of them and land on their heel. Then they roll forward across the base of their foot before pushing off again with their toes. Or, in my case, I land on my heel, using my longest possible stride because I’m rather tall, and then quickly slap the rest of my foot down on the pavement because I’m also relatively fast. Ka-thump.

  I’m only allowed the luxury of landing on my heel and slapping the rest of my foot down shortly thereafter, according to Lieberman, because I’m wearing running shoes. These shoes cushion the impact of my heel on the ground, called a heel strike, allowing me to take advantage of my six-foot-one frame by reaching my lead foot way out in front of my body, taking the largest strides possible.

  Runners who learned to run without the benefit of shoes run very differently. Without the enormous cushion provided by a pair of modern running shoes, heel striking doesn’t work. There simply isn’t enough fatty tissue on the heel of the foot to absorb the impact forces of an entire human body crashing down onto it. Instead, people who learned to run without shoes land on the ball/middle of their foot, called a forefoot strike. Then, using the calf muscles as a spring, they place their heels on the ground only briefly before again launching off their toes and into the next stride.

  In heel strikers, the entire body comes to a complete dead stop for an instant before forward momentum and the action of the leg muscles launch the body forward into the next stride. This presents a tremendous impact directly up the leg to the knees and hips, without the benefit of a calf muscle and ankle joint to mitigate the stress.

  In forefoot strikers, the impact is dramatically lessened because the impact force is transferred instead into angular momentum, modulated by the ankle joint and the calf muscles, before pushing off again into the next stride. The result of the forefoot strike is decreased stride length—a runner doesn’t have the luxury of sticking his foot way out in front of him anymore—but increased stride efficiency. This may make running injuries less common in forefoot strikers because they’re no longer coming to a momentary dead stop with each step, jolting their body weight up their legs. Research is still ongoing.

  Another way to look at it: People who learn to run barefoot run as though they actually have calf muscles and ankles to do some of the work. People who learn to run in shoes could be running on pirate peg legs, as far as their stride impact is concerned.

  According to Lieberman and his colleagues, humans have been running for approximately two million years. However, they’ve been doing it in running shoes for only a tiny fraction of that time. To me, it boggles the mind to think that evolved persistence hunters would devise a system of hunting that causes debilitating injuries to up to 80 percent of its participants each year. If running in shoes is frequently injurious to those who partake, and running itself is supposed to be instinctive and natural to humans, could running in shoes be to blame?

  A large part of Lieberman’s research involves testing to see if runners’ injuries are caused by repetitive stress on the joints and also whether running in shoes exacerbates that stress. Lieberman is a world-class evolutionary biologist with a professorship at Harvard—he has the burden and promise of peer review and professional commendations on the line as he tests his theory. As a result, he doesn’t try to tell people how to run. He’s a researcher, not a running coach.

  I, however, am a schmuck who likes to self-experiment. And sometimes I like to run places. In other words, I have no reason not to ditch the shoes for a day and see how I feel. If I like it, if it feels natural and fun—great. If not, I’ll stop. If it feels like my feet are going to shatter and leave me in a gasping, bloody heap splayed across the sidewalk, I’ll stop quickly.

  So this morning, I tell Summer I’m going out for a run.

  “You gonna put shoes on?” she asks.

  “Going without, today,” I reply.

  “Got it. Have fun,” she says.

  “That’s it?” I ask. “No questions? Admonishments? Concerns over the wisdom of my course of action?”

  She laughs. “Nope. This isn’t the first nutty thing you’ve done,” she replies, gesturing. “Please allow me to direct your attention to the cow in our backyard.”

  I chuckle and head for the front door.

  I step outside and close the door behind me, feeling like the patchouli-est of hippie weirdos. Who runs barefoot? Hell, who walks barefoot? If I say hello to other people on the path, they’re gonna think I’m recruiting for a cult. I’m one shaven head away from a police report.

  I stroll down my front walk to the sidewalk. Man, if I so much as smell broken glass, I’m gonna bleed like a stuck pig. This is in no way safe.

  Alright. Put up or shut up. I break into a jog.

  Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. This hurts.

  I power through for a few paces, trying to figure out why. It doesn’t take long: I’m heel striking. Really, really hard. With each step, my lead foot extends far out in front of me as I crash down hard directly onto the bone of my heel, only thinly shrouded in flesh.

  Without the cushion of a half inch of space-age polymers, my heel can’t withstand the impact.

  So that doesn’t work. I slow to a walk. I know I’m supposed to forefoot strike, but that isn’t how I learned to run. I need to think this through.

  I ease into a very slow jog as I focus on my stride. I’m a big guy—I take big steps. I tighten up my gait and focus on landing on the ball of my foot. It isn’t especially natural. I feel like the world’s least graceful ballerino. Jeté. Frappé.

  However, not a ka-thump to be found. Running like this is eerily silent. The only sound I hear is my own rhythmic breathing.

  Little steps. I force myself to stay slow. Pay attention. Land on the forefoot. After a few minutes, I’m not sending shock waves of pain up my legs anymore. But I notice something else. My calves are burning. This isn’t a movement they’re accustomed to making this hard, for this long. Or at all, really. With each step, it’s harder to land correctly.

  I’m nearing the end of my regular run, the point where I would ordinarily launch into a sprint. Determined, I hit my usual mark and I take
off.

  And I fly.

  This! This is natural. This feels right.

  At a sprint pace, my heels never touched the ground anyway. Without shoes, this familiar motion feels almost effortless. Barefoot, it’s far easier to sprint than it is to jog. I feel several inches taller. The law of gravity is just a suggestion. I’m Hermes on amphetamines.

  I slow up as I reach my house, winded but ecstatic. My virginal pink feet are torn up and bloody from trying to find traction on the rough concrete, but I’m hooked. Running barefoot is freeing and fun. It makes the act of running seem like a game rather than an obligation. Like play. Maybe it’s the runner’s high talking. Or maybe it’s just joy.

  Either way—I want to do this again.

  * * *

  It’s getting downright Laura Ingalls Wilder at my Little House in the Valley. In addition to running barefoot and heeding the wisdom of nineteenth-century French butter lovers, I’ve started something of a backyard garden. Seven-foot-tall tomato plants block the view of my orange trees. Cucumber vines have burst from the soil, clambering up the cage I built for them and spreading a meter in every direction. Nearby, ferocious jalapeños thrust out more peppers than I could ever hope to use, turning fully red before I can even manage to get them off the vine. I’m accompanying my beef dishes with more vegetables than a boatload of Buddhists, and all the detritus goes straight into my backyard; my compost pile, halfheartedly begun when we bought the house, is now a towering edifice of bugs and branches and vigorous aerobic decay.

  I cook a lot on weekends now, and I eat a lot more whole foods. My wife’s fresh-baked wheat bread. Brown rice. Whole roast chickens. These culinary escapades are lovely, but they require a fairly regular influx of vegetables. With this garden, I’m trying to raise as many of those veggies here at home as I can. I should get some overalls. I could rock some overalls.

  It’s against this backdrop that I find myself standing, shoeless, in my kitchen, staring at a bowl of heavy cream that I’d left on the counter overnight to rot. On purpose.

  Summer slips in behind me, joining my contemplation. “Is it ready?”

  “I don’t know,” I answer.

  “How do you tell?”

  “It gets thick. I don’t think it’s thick enough.”

  “It looks thick.”

  “Yeah, but is it thick enough?”

  We stare at the cream in silence for a moment. I used a down-and-dirty method of fermenting heavy cream into crème fraîche. It should be about done. Maybe.

  On a shelf outside the kitchen, my phone chirps. I glance vaguely in its direction but otherwise ignore it. I’m focused on the project at hand.

  Finally, I make a decision. “I think it’s thick enough.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Summer agrees, patting me on the back.

  “Sweet. Butter time.”

  “Is that trademarked?” she asks. “Like, that could be your superhero catchphrase—‘It’s butter time!’”

  “Hush, you.” I laugh as I dump what I hope is crème fraîche into my food processor. I flip a switch, and the device’s blades whip the liquid into froth. “I guess I’d butter try again.” Lord, why do I do it? My brain can see the horrible pun coming, but my mouth says it anyway. It’s a problem.

  Summer shakes her head. “Do you get paid by the pun or something?” She points to the bowl. “I think we’re getting somewhere…” she says.

  She’s right. Inside the food processor, the liquid is thickening further. This is good. A few more minutes and actual clumps form. It looks a little like cottage cheese.

  “That’s butter?” Summer asks.

  “Yeah. Butter in the making. Protobutter, I suppose. We have to rinse it.”

  After a few minutes, I empty the bowl of the food processor into the second-largest glass bowl I have (the largest is filled with ice water for a later step), being sure to scrape out all the clumps.

  Using a measuring cup as a ladle, I pour some cold water into my butter bowl, producing a mixture that looks like extremely runny cottage cheese. I mash it with a fork, making sure to get water onto the smallest clumps of protobutter that I can. The butter, being mostly fat, will refuse to mix with the water. Meanwhile, the buttermilk, being mostly water, will dilute, turning the water cloudy. This rinsing is how the pure butter separates out from the crème fraîche.

  I empty the liquid through a strainer, careful to retain the solid in the bowl, and repeat the process several more times. Water in, empty the liquid when it’s cloudy. Literally: Rinse and repeat.

  When the mixture rinses clear, the solid section really looks like butter. I turn it out onto a cutting board, dash on some kosher salt, folding repeatedly to work it in.

  “So that’s it?” Summer asks. “That’s butter?”

  “That’s butter.” I tighten it up into something like a log.

  “We made it ourselves.”

  “We did, at that.”

  “Awesome. Can we try it yet?”

  “Sure! It’s butter. It’ll probably be better cold, though.”

  “Cold schmold. I want butter.”

  “Can I bring you something to put it on?”

  “You can bring me a spoon.”

  I laugh and head back to the kitchen.

  “And bring the butter crock!” she calls after me. “That thing is amazing.”

  I grin.

  * * *

  I don’t know definitively if eating more whole foods is better for me, but it certainly couldn’t be any worse. Without a doubt, meals are more delicious now, if more time-consuming to produce. People definitely ate better before World War II. Cattle were raised differently then, too, back before they became a petroleum product.

  My experience with this freezer full of beef is also paying off in my family’s health and general happiness. And I notice some commonalities in the changes we’ve been making. Frequently, Summer and I find ourselves reverting to previous iterations of a technology or technique that, for one reason or another, fell out of favor. I start jokingly referring to this state as One Step Back. Then, not so jokingly.

  One Step Back, cows ate grass.

  One Step Back, more people knew how to cook.

  One Step Back, obesity was rarer.

  I’m already one batch of hominy away from our place becoming a cover story in Pioneer Kitchens Monthly. So as a thought experiment, for every action in my day I start asking how people used to do it. Every task I perform, every methodology I employ—again and again: How was it done previously? And was it done better One Step Back?

  Some of my retreats into historical precedent are completely fruitless. Before people worked on laptops, they worked on typewriters. In no way, sense, or fashion do I have any desire to return to the time of Olivettis and Underwoods. That’s just crazy talk. I prefer my productivity machines with delete keys.

  Other advances, however, aren’t so clear-cut. Shaving, for example. Why does my razor need three, four, or five blades? Why isn’t one blade sufficient for the task at hand, namely, denuding my face of hair? And why are there so many ever-more-gimmicky models flooding the marketplace? I shave with a curvaceous triple-bladed gewgaw that looks like the offspring of an unholy union between a ballpoint pen and a Dyson vacuum. To facilitate its use, I slather on neon-hued foam smuggled out of Chernobyl in a babushka’s carry-on. It’s just how I started shaving in high school (oh, who am I kidding—just after college). It’s just how things are done. I don’t know why.

  Once, men shaved with straight razors. A single, gleaming shard of forged steel that folded out of a wood handle like the pocketknife from hell. They have a fearsome reputation for a reason—they could slice your face off as easily as shave it.

  After one too many men filleted his cheek, the safety razor was invented. It is, essentially, a section of straight razor, mounted perpendicular to the handle—a shape familiar to most primates capable of speech. While it was still entirely possible to inflict grievous damage to one’s fac
e—it uses a full-blown razor blade, for Pete’s sake—one had to work a little harder at it. Safer, yes. But safety is relative.

  In the first half of the twentieth century, a man named King Gillette made the next great strides forward in razor technology. He perfected a way to manufacture and sell sharp, thin razor blades stamped from a single sheet of steel rather than the much more costly forged blades used in razors at the time. Because Gillette’s razor blades could be manufactured cheaply, they could be discarded when they dulled instead of being painstakingly resharpened. This created an entirely new income stream for the company; men constantly needed to replace their dull blades.

  When Gillette’s patents on his stamped blades expired, other companies leapt into the fray to try to claim market share. Amid fierce competition, the blades themselves became proprietary and noninterchangeable, enforcing brand loyalty. Buying a razor became a lot like joining a cult.

  Put differently, razors have eleventy hundred blades because it’s a way to hook a consumer into buying expensive proprietary blades forever and ever. And if marketers can convince someone to “upgrade” to the next, latest, and greatest depilatory device, all the better. Interested in more blades on the head? Perhaps something that vibrates? What about a razor that whispers positive affirmations while you shave and then plays “Eye of the Tiger” when it gets wet? Razor companies are well prepared to accept your perpetual commitment to whichever shaving system you should desire.

  Which is to say, the endless iterations of shaving techniques have far more to do with marketing and cash flow than they do with performing the task for which the implement was designed. My triple-bladed shaving device is expressly designed to excise as much cash from my person as possible. And then, secondarily, to cut off my face hairs.

  But those old razors are still out there, from before the format wars. There’s still a semiobscure brotherhood of men—perhaps with a little gray in their beards—who still cling to the old tech, refurbishing ancient kits or remaking new ones in the old style.

  And one cloudy Saturday afternoon, I find them. Standing in an old-school cutlery shop in downtown LA, the air heavy with the scent of old wood and oiled steel. I’m having my chef’s knife sharpened; it’s grown dull from near constant use, and this place, Ross Cutlery, has a reputation as the best at it. The store has been around since 1930 and I wouldn’t be surprised if it looked exactly the same as it did the day it opened. Tile floors. Glass cases. An enormous scale that will weigh you for a dime.